That Took The Startch

A play date at dinner time with two boys from the neighborhood and their mom and the dad and the mom and the other nanny, who came over to help the mom with some projects, and the dog.

And.

Oh.

Yeah.

Me.

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.

That was hard-core.

And to think that I was patting myself on the back for how good I was doing today.

I got in, took the littlest guy over, played chalk drawings on the front sidewalk, got him lunch, and got him down for his nap with nary a problem.

Then.

Run to the market, pick up dinner stuff for tonight’s meal with friends and prep said dinner while the monkey napped–whole wheat spaghetti with turkey meatballs, steamed cauliflower with olive oil and garlic, large tossed salad. I also made sure there were apples sliced up with cinnamon for snacks and did the dishes, the composting, and some light cleaning.

Then I had my lunch and sat for a hot second before the nap time was over.

Then it was go, go, go.

Go to the library, return books, check out more books.

Go to the park.

Play like maniacs.

Then.

Shit.

The smallest one takes a header playing “sea monster with his older brother. I could not tell if there was a push involved with the older boy, I suspect that there was, but since I didn’t see it, I did not report it as such.

I think there’s a bit of sibling rivalry that happens and the younger is often shoved out-of-the-way or has his toys taken or gets pushed around a little.

Granted.

The little guy is a tough cookie.

But he got a bang on the head and the skin was cut and there’s a bruise and I immediately thought, shit, not even week two and I’ll be fired.

I wasn’t fired.

Mom was great.

“Accidents happen, he seems fine,” she said and let it go.

Then the melee.

Two four-year old boys and two two year old boys and a dog and two moms and a dad and two nanny’s and dinner time and whoa Nelly.

The mom did step in at one point when I was corralling four boys to eat their dinner, and let me know that if it was all too much to tell her, but what could I say.

It wasn’t all too much.

It was just a lot.

And I knew it was going to be done soon.

But it did feel like a mad scramble to keep it all together.

Fortunately play dates like this probably don’t happen all the time.

I would be a dead nanny in the water if they did.

As it stands, I am just a tired nanny who left more than a touch frazzled.

I had a few minutes between work and my evening commitment and I sailed along Valencia Street on my bicycle stopping by Therapy to do a little window shopping.

“Carmen!” A co-worker of mine from the bicycle shop rode by on his bicycle and waved to me.

“Carmen!” A young woman who I taught swimming lessons to when she was ten, she’s no longer ten, and I had to bite my tongue to not say, “oh my god, how tall you’ve gotten.”

I got a hug and we caught up and then I ran into another friend a block up.

“You going to this thing,” I nodded to him out side the gate.

“Yup,” he said and gave me a huge hug.

“I see you riding up Lincoln Avenue all the time, do you live out there?”

Yes.

Yes, I do.

I live, all the way out there.

Though once I had a chance to sit and let my body and my mind rest for an hour, the fifteen minute meditation I did was spectacular, I felt rested enough to do it without complaint.

The ride through the park was superb and I felt rejuvenated from the brisk air and the delicious smell of night-blooming jasmine co-mingled with the ever-present sea salt smell and grateful, once again, to be living and working and commuting in San Francisco.

It is a pretty grand life.

Even when it is a pretty damn busy life.

Sometimes, like this morning, the thought of sustaining this pace feels a bit much, but I know that the routine is getting the kinks worked out and before too long it will just feel like what I do and it will just be what I do.

I have about a year of this.

Then the graduate school.

Which is its own kind of arduous journey, a journey my brain has been loathe to comprehend, and when it does it sees all the hours and the work and the money and whoa.

That too knocks me down and tuckers me out.

Then I thought, while I was writing this morning, that I don’t have to do it all by, say, this weekend. I have time to go on the journey and I have time to prepare for it.

The admissions for next fall open in November.

Tomorrow is the first day of October and there are five weeks in October, 31 days.

All I have to do is one action every week.

Some will take a series of smaller actions to make them go, others just teeny tiny endeavors will bear great results.

One goal to set for this week is to order my transcripts from undergraduate program degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

I have done it before when I applied to the MFA program in Creative Writing at USF.

A program I obviously did not get into, despite being so cock sure that not only was I getting in, I was going to get a scholarship too and loads of financial aid.

I don’t feel that way about this program.

I do feel that I will get in, but I am uncertain how the funding is going to go.

That, however, is not a concern for me this week.

This week, the only action I take, aside from not letting the boys take me down, is to order my transcripts.